#AcademicRunPlaylist - 4/5/25

I took a quick trip over to Denver for SIOP, and I really enjoyed my panel with Kevin Rutherford, Tony Boyce, Fred Oswald, and Richard Justenhoven. On my flights I was also able to listen to some books for my #AcademicRunPlaylist!

First was “Inventing the Renaissance” by Ada Palmer. This is a voluminous but easy to read book that takes an individually-focused view of the Renaissance. Palmer demystifies the era through this very human exploration of how this period was defined and imagined by people during and after it.

Discerning broader trends, however, are mostly left to the reader, and are buried amidst entertaining but distracting prose that would be more at home in fiction. Some people will like this, but it wasn't my cup of tea. For example, there's nearly an entire chapter written in second person.

I have some other minor quibbles (use of the term "history lab" rather than department to lend credibility, constant fourth wall breaking, etc.). Overall, if you want to jump into the Renaissance period this will definitely set the table, although further reading to more deeply understand it will probably be necessary. https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/I/bo246135916.html 

Next was “America for Americans” by Erika Lee. Lee methodically reviews North American and US immigration history to demonstrate the strong undercurrent of racism and xenophobia that has always been the undercurrent of immigration policy. Showing the shifting notion of "desirable" immigrants and the American invention of immigration restrictions, she further dives into sordid corners of immigration policy that aren't well known - the example of encouraging Peru to export their Japanese ancestry citizens to the US during WW2 so we could intern them and then trade them to Japan for American citizens was genuinely shocking. Seen in this light, recent moves look all the more disturbingly normal, with echoes of the deportation of American citizens of Mexican descent coming to mind. Highly recommend http://www.erikalee.org/america-for-americans/ 

Last was “At America's Gates,” also by Erika Lee. While Lee covers some of the issues in this book in later works, I learned a lot from the tighter focus on the Chinese immigration experience. This was when the US essentially invented illegal immigration, and the additional unconstitutional discrimination layered on top of these new restrictions is sobering. This should be required reading for everyone in the US. Highly recommend https://uncpress.org/book/9780807854488/at-americas-gates/